The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

The John Chandler Moore Mansion -- No. 15 East 70th Street

On January 9, 1910 The New York Times advised “The finest
residential block in Manhattan is now in process of development from Fifth to
Madison Avenue, between Seventieth and Seventy-First Streets.This is the Lenox Library block, which in less
than three years has undergone a complete transformation.”

The newspaper reported on the coming
demolition of James Lenox’s magnificent library building and opined that if James
Lenox were alive “he would see the great open field in the rear
that has been a familiar sight for many years to every passenger traveling on
the Madison Avenue cars being filled up with a number of the most elegant types
of private dwellings to be found in this country.”

One of the “most elegant types of
private dwellings” that was nearing completion was the home of John Chandler
Moore at No. 15 East 70th Street.Moore and his wife, the former Corinne de Bebian, had commissioned Charles
I. Berg of the architectural firm of Cady, Berg & See to design their new
home.

Moore was President of Tiffany & Co. jewelers; a Moore-Tiffany relationship
that stretched back to the first half of the 19th
century.Moore’s grandfather, also named
John Chandler Moore, established his silver making business in 1832.His exquisite pieces were made for the
top-end retailers most notably Marquand & Co. and their successors,
Ball, Tompkins & Black.But in 1851
he signed an exclusive agreement with Tiffany.

It was his son, Edwin C. Moore (the father of the present John Chandler
Moore) whose creations became the face and personality of Tiffany & Co.He was called “easily the foremost
silversmith in the United States” by The Illustrated American. John Chandler Moore became associated with Tiffany & Co.
in 1880 and became its President in 1907, two years before construction began
on the 70th Street mansion.

Berg had produced a magnificent limestone-clad Beaux Arts-style home for
the Moores.Five stories high, its
entrance was centered within the rusticated base, below a carved cartouche that
announced the address.

While some French-inspired mansions along Fifth Avenue and
its side streets dripped with garlands and other ornamentation; the Moore house
was restrained in its decoration.Even
the ordered iron railing of the third floor balcony resisted the temptation of
excess.

John and Corinne had one son, Louis de Bebian Moore.The Moore family maintained a summer estate
in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island, “Moorelands.”The mansion there was also designed by Charles Berg.

The Moore's Long Island estate, Moorelands, was also designed by Charles Berg -- Architecture, 1918 (copyright expired)

A year after the family moved into the 70th
Street home, the engagement of Louis was announced on New Year’s Eve,
1911.Louis had graduated from Harvard
earlier that year.

Three weeks later, on January 24, Corinne hosted the first
of the related entertainments.The
New-York Tribune reported on the luncheon she gave “for Miss Allison Pierce,
whose engagement to Louis de Bebian Moore was recently announced.”

Allison Douglass Pierce was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Winslow Shelby Pierce and, like her fiance, moved in the best of circles.A year earlier she had been a member of the
wedding of Vivien Gould to Lord Decies.Her own “country wedding” would take place at her parents' Long Island
estate, “Dunstable,” in September 1912.

To get the many guests from Manhattan a special train was
arranged.The marriage of the two
socially-visible young people prompted The Sun to call it “interesting” to society.

In 1930 the Moores could boast that their home, or rather
their rear yard, was the center of Manhattan society.For years the Social Register Association had
analyzed the addresses of prominent families listed in the New York Social
Register. It then discerned the exact social center of Manhattan.This year, according to the Association, “the
precise point…was in the southeastern quarter of the rear yard of 15 East
Seventieth Street.”

Sadly for John and Corinne Moore, they could not claim the
distinction for long.The continuous
northward movement of society placed the social center a block away by 1932,
between 71st and 72nd Street and Madison and Park
Avenues.

Two years after John Chandler Moore became Chairman of the
Board of Tiffany & Co., his wife died at the Oyster Bay estate on October
10, 1942.Four years later Moore died in
the 70th Street mansion at the age of 82.

At the time of Moore’s death the Barmore School operated
from No. 22 East 60th Street.The private women’s college offered courses in the liberal arts and “practical
career preparation.”In 1947 it acquired
the Moore mansion, converting it to classrooms.

The school kept up with the changing times, introducing “an
accelerated specialized training for college graduates” in 1951; and that same
year, a course in wedding planning.

The Israeli Consulate was located in the adjoining house at
No. 11 East 70th Street.By
1958 the Israeli Government had taken No. 15, as well, as its United Nations
delegation building.A fire that started
in the “wood-paneled office” of counselor Arthur Liveran at around 10:15 a.m.
on April 31 that year tied up traffic in the area for two hours and briefly
trapped one worker, a secretary, on the fourth floor.She was rescued by ladder by firemen.

In 1983 Nos. 15 and 11 had been internally connected and a conversion
to condos by Raphael Cohen and Enrico Frigerio was underway.In October that year The New York Times
announced that one-, two- and three-bedrooms apartments would be available from
$459,000 to $1 million.John Chandler
Moore’s former home lured celebrated house-hunters.

Spy magazine reported “it came as no surprise when, shortly
after the Time’s announcement ran, [Richard M.] Nixon himself appeared on the
stoop at No. 15 East 70th Street, eager to buy.The renovation had hardly begun, but Nixon
wasn’t taking any chances; he put down a deposit on one of the apartments and
signed an agreement to buy it.Later the
fashion designer Norma Kamali came, and she was so charmed that she wanted to
buy two apartments.Later still came
another person well know to Manhattan real estate brokers—Madonna.”

Among later owners would be Jerry W. Levin, former chairman
of the Sharper Image whose unit engulfed the entire third floor.In December 2012 a sprawling apartment,
deemed by Robin Finn of The New York Times to be “a ‘Petite’ Versailles,” was
offered at $10.95 million.

No. 15 has been joined internally with No. 11 (right).

From the sidewalk view, little has changed to John Chandler
Moore’s mansion.It looks much as it did
in 1910 when The Times deemed this “the finest residential block in Manhattan.”